of Canterbury and its first archbishop St Augustine, it then leads on to the bishopric of Rochester. Book Two The Kingdoms of East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex: In addition to the bishoprics of London, Norwich, Winchester, Sherborne, Salisbury, Bath, Exeter and Chichester William also details twenty-three religious houses. Book Three The Kingdom of Northumbria: Including the bishoprics of York, Lindisfarne and Durham. William admitted to not knowing a great deal about the monasteries in the north of England and only covered those at Wearmouth and Whitby. William also touches on other aspects from history such as the well preserved Roman remains at Carlisle, where he mentions a stone vaulted triclinium. Book Four The Kingdom of Mercia: Covers the bishoprics of Worcester, Hereford, Lichfield/Coventry, Dorchester/Lincoln and Ely. More familiar territory to William than Northumbria, he describes nineteen monasteries. Book Five The history of Malmesbury Abbey, to which William belonged, and the life of its founding Abbot, St Aldhelm. Sources The History of the English Bishops, in the manner of many chroniclers' continuations, begins where Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum left off. So William relied heavily on the work of Bede for the early historical information, but also used the work of other medieval historians such as Eadmer. He also used records and documents such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, episcopal lists and the letters and works of his predecessors and contemporaries. For example William had put together a collection of letters and texts by St Anselm. There is also evidence to suggest William travelled to many of the places he mentions and used local manuscripts and he also provides many detailed topographical observations. Variants Magdalen College, Oxford MS lat. 172 was written around 1125 in William's own hand, making it the oldest surviving autograph manuscript from England. It takes the form of a pocket-sized book, its parchment leaves measuring 7.1 by 4.8 inches. At the head of folio 1 is the Malmesbury Abbey impressed mark, and a pagination in Arabic numerals in a 14th-century hand indicates that no pages have been lost since then. It contains his subsequent annotations which show he continued to revise the text over at least the next decade. His edits often removed comments about his contemporaries. Unfortunately, some of William's marginalia are affected by a trimming by a bookbinder in the 17th century. This is the only medieval manuscript in which Book Five survives in full